AdTech Collective by Seedtag
News, trends, and insights in Digital Advertising
Most brands still treat a cultural moment like a single event. A topic trends, a campaign gets built around the headline, and by the time it launches, the conversation has already moved on.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding is a perfect example, not because of the ceremony itself, but because of everything that happened around it. Long before any official details were confirmed, the internet had already transformed it into dozens of interconnected conversations spanning fashion, sports, celebrity media, luxury, and fandom.
That gap between how brands plan and how culture actually moves is one of the most overlooked trends in advertising today.
To better understand it, Seedtag’s LAB Insights team mapped the online conversation using Liz, our proprietary Neuro-Contextual AI. What emerged went far beyond one couple or one weekend. It revealed how cultural moments evolve across connected interests, emotions, and intent, and why real-time marketing built around a single keyword rarely captures the full opportunity.
The timing couldn't be more relevant. As brands continue to invest in video ads, generative AI, and short-form content, the race to respond to cultural moments is only accelerating. But speed alone doesn't solve the core challenge. Most campaigns built around viral moments still capture only a fraction of the conversation because they're not designed to follow where attention actually goes.
Key Takeaways
- Cultural moments rarely unfold as a single story. They spread across interconnected clusters of interest, emotion, and intent.
- Speculation often generates more sustained engagement than the confirmed event itself, making anticipation a marketing opportunity in its own right.
- Audiences move fluidly between fashion, sports, entertainment, and lifestyle, while many marketing strategies still treat these as separate categories.
- Brand mentions and fashion signals emerge early, creating valuable windows for brand recognition long before mainstream coverage catches up.
- Understanding conversations at the cluster level, rather than the headline level, turns viral moments into smarter, data-driven marketing strategies.
What Hidden Advertising Trends Do Brands Miss When a Cultural Moment Goes Viral?
Most marketing teams still approach cultural moments as a single spike in attention. A story breaks, interest rises, then fades, and campaigns are built to capture that one wave.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding shows why that model leaves value on the table.
Using Liz, we identified more than 2,160 topic nodes grouped into seven distinct contextual clusters. This wasn't one conversation. It was seven overlapping narratives, each with its own audience, emotional tone, and commercial relevance.
Two of those clusters, Swiftie Speculations and Entertainment Press, each represented roughly 30% of the entire graph. Long before the ceremony took place, conversations around celebrity NDAs, venue rumors, family connections, and media speculation were already driving enormous engagement.
The biggest marketing opportunity isn't the cultural moment itself. It's everything happening before, around, and beyond it.
The build-up consistently attracts more sustained attention than the event itself, and it expands across categories that have little to do with the obvious topic. A wedding quickly becomes a conversation about fashion, sports, music, luxury, celebrity media, and fandom, each creating its own emotional context and commercial opportunity.
Why Do Traditional Marketers Fail to Catch Emerging Advertising Trends Related to Internet Subcultures?
One of today's fastest-moving advertising trends is the growing influence of internet subcultures on mainstream conversations. Yet traditional marketing strategy still plans around categories like sports, entertainment, and fashion as if audiences move between them in predictable ways.
They don't. Internet communities connect topics organically, creating conversations that cross industries, audiences, and platforms.
Swifties are a perfect example.
Throughout the weeks leading up to the wedding, fans treated every rumor, clue, and unconfirmed detail as meaningful. Liz's contextual graph surfaced clusters filled with themes like superfans, theories, itineraries, and speculation, sitting alongside entertainment journalism and celebrity news coverage.
The conversation wasn't driven by confirmed information. It was driven by curiosity.
Brands focused exclusively on official news coverage would have missed where engagement was actually happening.
A second cluster told a parallel story.
Taylor Swift's music career and Travis Kelce's NFL season evolved side by side, connecting music, sports, celebrity culture, and personal relationships into a single narrative. Rather than one audience absorbing the other, two powerful communities expanded the conversation together.
For marketers, that's the real lesson. Consumer behavior doesn't follow category boundaries. It follows relevance.
Understanding those connections requires data-driven marketing strategies capable of following conversations as they evolve, rather than waiting for headlines to define them.
One Moment, Many Conversations
This is where many marketing strategies fall short.
Marketers often build campaigns around the trending keyword, assuming audiences experience culture through a single topic.
They don't.
People move naturally between interests, emotions, and intent, following whichever thread feels most relevant in the moment.
Fashion became one of the earliest signals in this example.
Before most official details emerged, guest photos, designer speculation, and luxury brand mentions had already formed one of the densest contextual clusters within Liz's graph.
Dior quickly became associated with the wedding dress, while Artifex attracted attention for the engagement ring. Rather than supporting the main story, these brands became part of it, generating their own conversations driven by admiration, aspiration, and curiosity.
This is real-time marketing at its best.
Fashion isn't simply an extension of a cultural moment. It's often one of the first places where brand recognition accelerates because audiences are already emotionally invested.
Secrecy became another conversation entirely.
Once speculation focused on Madison Square Garden, discussions around guest lists, venue security, the 34th Street shutdown, and celebrity NDAs exploded across media and social platforms.
Much of the engagement wasn't fueled by confirmed information. It was fueled by anticipation.
That anticipation spread especially well through short-form video, where audiences actively searched for updates, theories, and behind-the-scenes clues rather than polished explanations.
More importantly, it demonstrates a broader advertising trend.
People don't wait for the headline. They engage with everything leading up to it.
Why Marketers Miss These Connected Conversations
Traditional media planning still tends to organize campaigns by category. Sports content is bought as sports. Entertainment is bought as entertainment. Fashion is treated as its own world.
But audiences don't experience culture that way.
They move seamlessly between conversations, following the stories, emotions, and communities that matter most to them.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding showed exactly that.
Swifties didn't simply overlap with NFL fans. Together, they created an entirely new conversation that neither audience could have generated alone. Music, sports, celebrity culture, and lifestyle became part of the same cultural moment, creating fresh opportunities for brands that understood how those interests connected.
The emotional signals driving that conversation were equally revealing.
Admiration, anticipation, excitement, and joy weren't attached to one topic. They flowed naturally across multiple contextual clusters as audiences followed every new development.
That's why campaigns built around a single category often miss the moment when engagement is at its highest.
Audience intent doesn't follow media plans. It follows connected conversations.
And understanding those conversations is becoming one of the defining advertising trends shaping modern marketing strategy.
The Marketing Lesson: Understanding Before Reacting
Reacting quickly to a cultural moment is no longer enough.
The real advantage comes from understanding how that moment evolves before, during, and after it captures mainstream attention.
This is where Neuro-Contextual Intelligence changes the equation.
Rather than relying on personal data or assumptions about who audiences are, our Neuro-Contextual AI, Liz, interprets signals of interest, emotion, and intent directly from the content people are engaging with across the open web.
Applied to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding, Liz identified more than 2,160 topic nodes connected across seven contextual clusters, revealing not just where attention existed, but how it moved between fashion, sports, entertainment, luxury, fandom, and celebrity media.
Instead of reducing the event to a single headline or keyword, the graph exposed an ecosystem of interconnected conversations.
That's the principle behind Neuro-Contextual Advertising.
Rather than treating a cultural moment as a single media opportunity, it enables brands to understand the wider context surrounding it, helping them align with the emotions, interests, and intent driving engagement in real time.
Because understanding audiences means understanding how conversations evolve, not simply what they're talking about at any given moment.
What This Means for Marketing Strategy
The pace of digital culture continues to accelerate.
Marketers are investing more in generative AI, content creation, short-form video, and social media campaigns to respond faster to emerging trends. Those investments matter.
But speed alone isn't enough.
The brands that create meaningful connections won't necessarily be the ones publishing first.
They'll be the ones who understand where attention is moving before everyone else does.
That requires looking beyond headlines and trending keywords to see the broader patterns shaping consumer behavior.
Cultural moments don't belong to a single audience, a single platform, or a single category.
They're built from dozens of interconnected conversations unfolding simultaneously across the open web.
Understanding those connections is quickly becoming one of the most important competitive advantages in modern marketing.
The Advertising Trend That Actually Matters
The next defining cultural moment won't belong to the brands that react the fastest. It'll belong to the brands that understand how conversations spread.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding is simply one example.
Tomorrow's defining moment could be the Super Bowl, the Oscars, a World Cup final, or an unexpected viral trend. The event will change, but the pattern won't.
Cultural moments don't unfold through a single conversation. They spread across interconnected interests, emotions, and behaviors.
For marketers, that's the advertising trend that matters most. The brands that learn to understand those connections won't just keep up with culture. They'll be ready to move with it.
For years, the advertising industry has debated the merits of the open web vs. walled gardens.
The conversation usually centers on scale, targeting, reach, and performance. Which environment offers better audiences? Which delivers stronger results? Which deserves a greater share of media investment?
Those questions still matter. But they are no longer the only ones.
As signal loss and fragmentation continue to reshape advertising, and AI plays a larger role in planning and activation, a more important question is emerging:
Where can advertisers operate with genuine transparency?
The industry has spent years optimizing around demographics, identifiers, and behavioral signals. But those approaches were built for a different era. As privacy regulations reshape how user data can be collected and activated, many of the assumptions that defined digital advertising are being challenged.
More importantly, people have never been as simple as the systems built to reach them.
A 35-year-old woman, married, in a dual-income household with two children under ten, is not an audience. She might be researching sustainable travel after work. Comparing mortgage options. Reading about marathon training. Planning a family vacation.
The demographic label remains the same. The context, motivations, emotions, and intent behind each moment do not.
This is why the future of advertising is not simply about finding new ways to identify people. It is about developing a better understanding of the moments that shape attention and decision-making.
And it is why the conversation around open web vs walled gardens is evolving into something larger. Not a debate about channels. A conversation about transparency, understanding, and how advertising creates relevance in a privacy-first world.
Key Takeaways
- The debate around open web vs walled gardens is evolving from audience access to transparency and accountability.
- Traditional targeting methods built around demographics and identifiers are becoming less effective in a privacy-first advertising landscape.
- Advertisers need greater visibility into how campaigns are planned, activated, and measured across media environments.
- The open web provides transparency, independent measurement, and contextual intelligence that help brands understand audiences beyond demographic profiles.
- Unified Ad Platforms and End-to-End Platforms simplify activation but also raise important questions around visibility and verification.
- The future of advertising will depend on balancing scale, transparency, and a deeper understanding of human attention.
Open Web vs Walled Gardens: Why the Debate Still Matters
Both walled gardens and the open web play an important role in modern digital advertising.
Walled gardens, including platforms operated by major tech giants, provide access to large logged-in audiences, rich first-party user data, and highly integrated advertising products. Their scale and simplicity have made them a cornerstone of many media strategies.
The open web offers a different advantage.
It provides access to a diverse ecosystem of premium publishers, content environments, and independent technology partners. Rather than operating inside a single closed platform, advertisers can activate campaigns across a broad range of trusted environments where consumers actively engage with content.
This distinction matters because the way people consume media continues to evolve.
Consumers spend their time across multiple channels, devices, and content experiences. They move seamlessly between social platforms, streaming services, publisher websites, mobile apps, and connected TV.
The question is no longer whether advertisers should choose the open web or walled gardens. The real question is how each environment contributes to a broader media strategy.
Why Transparency Matters More Than Ever
As the industry evolves, transparency is emerging as one of the most important considerations for advertisers.
For years, digital advertising benefited from an abundance of user-level signals. Audience targeting became increasingly sophisticated, allowing brands to reach consumers based on demographics, interests, and online behaviors.
Today, that landscape is changing.
Privacy regulations continue to reshape data collection practices. Browser restrictions limit access to traditional identifiers. Consumers expect greater control over how their information is used.
At the same time, AI-powered systems are increasingly responsible for planning, activation, optimization, and measurement decisions.
This creates a new challenge.
There is still an enormous amount of data available. But there is often less visibility into how that data is interpreted and transformed into campaign decisions.
As automation increases, advertisers need confidence not only in outcomes but in the processes that generate those outcomes.
Transparency is no longer simply a reporting feature. It is becoming a strategic advantage.
Demographics Oversimplify People
The shift toward privacy-first advertising is also changing how marketers think about audiences.
For decades, advertising strategies have relied heavily on demographic segmentation:
- Age
- Gender
- Income
- Location
These signals can be useful, but they provide only a partial view of human behavior.
Two people with identical demographic profiles may have completely different motivations depending on the content they are consuming and the context surrounding that moment.
A parent reading about summer travel plans is in a different moment than that same person consuming breaking news. A sports fan researching match statistics has different intentions than when browsing home improvement content.
Demographics describe people. They do not explain moments. This is where Neuro-Contextual intelligence is becoming increasingly valuable.
Rather than focusing exclusively on who someone is, our Neuro-Contextual AI can help advertisers understand what matters to people in a specific moment by analyzing signals related to content, interest, emotion, and intent.
Because relevance is not only about identity. It is also about context.
Why Premium Advertisers Are Re-Evaluating Ad Spend
The shift in ad spend toward the open web is not driven by a single trend. It reflects a broader change in how brands evaluate media investments.
Advertisers increasingly want greater transparency into campaign performance, inventory quality, and measurement methodologies. They want to understand where ads appear, how decisions are made, and whether results can be independently validated.
The open web provides access to premium publisher environments where consumers actively engage with trusted content.
It also allows advertisers to work with a wider range of measurement and verification partners, creating additional visibility throughout the campaign lifecycle.
This does not mean brands are abandoning walled gardens. Far from it.
Many advertisers continue to rely on closed platforms for scale, activation, and performance marketing objectives.
However, they are increasingly seeking a balance between the efficiency of walled gardens and the transparency offered by the open web.
What Are Unified Ad Platforms and End-to-End Platforms?
Alongside traditional walled gardens, another trend is reshaping digital advertising: the rise of Unified Ad Platforms (UAPs) and End-to-End Platforms.
These solutions bring multiple functions, including planning, activation, data management, optimization, and measurement, into a single platform.
The appeal is clear. One workflow. One technology stack. One operational environment.
For many advertisers, these platforms simplify campaign execution and reduce complexity.
However, they also introduce an important consideration.
When planning, activation, optimization, and reporting all occur within the same ecosystem, advertisers may have fewer opportunities to independently verify how decisions are being made.
This does not make End-to-End Platforms inherently problematic. They solve real operational challenges.
But as automation and AI become more influential, advertisers must consider how much visibility they retain into the systems guiding campaign performance.
The question is not whether these platforms create value. The question is how transparency and accountability evolve within increasingly automated environments.
Understanding the Moment, Not Just the User
This is where the conversation ultimately moves beyond open web vs walled gardens.
The future of advertising is not simply about finding audiences. It is about understanding people. Not as demographic categories. Not as identifiers. Not as data points. But as individuals navigate thousands of moments throughout their day.
Modern contextual AI can help advertisers understand those moments by analyzing the content people engage with and identifying signals related to interest, emotion, and intent.
This creates a privacy-first approach to advertising that does not depend on personal identifiers to deliver relevance.
This philosophy powers our Neuro-Contextual intelligence.
Through Liz, our proprietary Neuro-contextual AI, we analyze content across premium publisher environments to understand the context surrounding every advertising opportunity.
Because meaningful advertising starts with understanding. Not just who people are. But what matters to them in the moment.
Looking Ahead
The future of advertising is unlikely to be defined by a single environment.
Walled gardens will continue to play an important role, particularly where first-party relationships and logged-in audiences create value. The open web will continue to provide transparency, flexibility, and access to premium content environments where attention naturally happens.
The more important question is not where advertisers spend every dollar.
It is whether they have enough visibility to understand why those investments work.
As media planning becomes increasingly influenced by AI, fragmented signals, and privacy-first frameworks, transparency is becoming more than a reporting feature.
It is becoming a competitive advantage.
The brands that succeed will not simply optimize for reach. They will optimize for understanding. Understanding the content. Understanding the context. And understanding the moments that shape how people think, feel, and act.
The FIFA World Cup 2026 will generate an unprecedented volume of attention across digital media. For automotive brands, that scale creates enormous opportunity but also a significant challenge: standing out in an environment where every advertiser competes for the same audience.
The difference between visibility and impact comes down to understanding intent. Not every football fan is equally receptive to a brand message, and not every page view signals genuine engagement.
During major sporting events, audiences move between match coverage, transfer rumors, national team narratives, player stories, entertainment content, and countless adjacent interests. Within those moments lie valuable signals that can help brands identify when consumers are most open to engagement.
The question is no longer how to reach World Cup audiences. It is about identifying the moments when attention becomes meaningful engagement.
Below, we explore the audience insights shaping fan behavior during the tournament and how automotive brands can use Neuro-Contextual advertising to transform World Cup attention into meaningful consideration.
Key Takeaways
- The difference between a browser and an engaged consumer often lies in intent signals, not audience segments.
- World Cup audiences engage with far more than football, creating valuable opportunities across adjacent interests and passion points.
- Emotions such as excitement, curiosity, admiration, and optimism play a key role in how fans engage with content throughout the tournament.
- Neuro-Contextual advertising goes beyond keywords and categories to align messaging with interests, emotions, and intent.
- Dynamic creative optimization allows automotive campaigns to adapt in real time around tournament moments, audience context, and sentiment.
The Gap Between Looking and Engaging
Scale is not the challenge. During a World Cup, automotive brands can reach millions of consumers across the open web, connected TV, and streaming environments.
The challenge is identifying the difference between someone casually consuming content and someone demonstrating signals of genuine engagement.
Traditional targeting approaches often rely on keywords, categories, or broad audience segments. A page mentions "SUVs" or "electric vehicles," and an ad is served. While these signals can provide relevance, they do not always reveal what matters most: what the consumer is thinking, feeling, or looking for in that moment.
A reader exploring vehicle reviews out of curiosity may require a very different message from someone actively comparing models ahead of a purchase. Understanding that distinction helps brands move beyond simple reach and toward meaningful engagement.
Where Fan Attention Really Goes
One of the biggest misconceptions about the World Cup is that fans spend the tournament focused exclusively on football.
In reality, audience attention extends across a much broader ecosystem of content.
Audience interest also evolves throughout the tournament. Our insights show that engagement increases significantly during key moments such as the group stage, quarter-finals, and high-tension knockout rounds. Importantly, some of the largest spikes are driven not only by match results but also by player narratives, rivalries, and stories surrounding the competition.
Football-related interests such as domestic leagues, transfer rumors, national team stories, and club rivalries remain major drivers of engagement. But fans also spend time consuming content connected to celebrity culture, motorsports, entertainment, lifestyle topics, and national identity narratives.
These adjacent interests are not distractions from football fandom. They are part of how fans experience the tournament.
For automotive marketers, this creates additional opportunities to connect with audiences in contexts that may be less crowded than traditional sports environments while still maintaining strong relevance to fan interests.
Understanding these passion points allows brands to expand beyond match-day targeting and build a more comprehensive view of where their audiences spend time and attention.
The Emotional Signals Behind Engagement
The World Cup is not only a media event. It is an emotional one.
Across markets, football content generates a range of emotional responses, including excitement, curiosity, admiration, optimism, and even sadness. These emotions shift throughout the tournament as audiences react to victories, defeats, player performances, speculation, and national narratives.
While excitement consistently emerges as one of the strongest drivers of engagement, emotional responses vary across markets. Some audiences gravitate toward stories of national pride and sporting heroes, while others engage more deeply with tournament speculation, player narratives, or broader cultural conversations surrounding the event. Understanding these nuances can help brands deliver more relevant messaging throughout the competition.
For automotive brands, these signals offer valuable context. The emotions that shape engagement during the tournament can also influence how consumers respond to brand messaging, particularly in categories where consideration and aspiration play an important role.
Many vehicle purchase journeys are influenced by emotional factors alongside practical considerations. Curiosity about new technology, optimism about future ownership, excitement around a new model, and aspiration tied to lifestyle choices all play a role in consideration.
When brands understand the emotional context surrounding content consumption, they can align messaging more effectively with the consumer's interests, emotions, and intent in that moment.
How the Neuro-Contextual Approach Changes Automotive Marketing
Industry-standard targeting often relies on predefined content taxonomies and broad category classifications. Neuro-contextual approaches take a different path by analyzing content more deeply to understand interests, emotions, and intent signals in real time.
The difference between targeting a broad automotive category and identifying audiences such as Family Upgraders, First-Time Car Buyers, Urban Drivers, or Off-Road Adventure Enthusiasts is significant.
Rather than focusing solely on what content someone is consuming, Neuro-Contextual intelligence helps brands understand why that content matters to them.
For automotive marketers, this means identifying environments where signals of curiosity, optimism, excitement, and consideration are already present and aligning messaging accordingly.
The goal is not simply to be present. It is to be relevant.
Dynamic Creative That Moves With the Tournament
The World Cup unfolds in phases, and audience behavior evolves with it.
Interest levels rise during key matches, emotional intensity increases during knockout rounds, and fan conversations shift as new narratives emerge.
The content driving engagement during the group stage may be very different from the stories capturing attention during the quarter-finals or final, making flexibility a critical advantage for advertisers.
Creative should evolve alongside those changes.
Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) allows campaigns to adapt messaging based on factors such as tournament stage, location, time of day, weather conditions, and emotional sentiment.
A message delivered during a high-tension quarter-final may require a different creative approach than one served during the group stage. Likewise, audiences engaging with family-focused content may respond differently than audiences consuming performance or technology-related content.
By aligning creative with context, brands can create more relevant experiences throughout the tournament.
Measuring What Actually Matters
Clicks and viewability remain useful metrics, but they do not tell the full story.
For automotive brands operating within long and consideration-heavy purchase journeys, understanding campaign impact requires a broader measurement framework.
Attention metrics help reveal whether advertising was genuinely processed by consumers. Brand lift studies can demonstrate shifts in awareness, perception, and consideration. Incremental reach helps determine whether campaigns are connecting with new audiences rather than repeatedly reaching the same users.
Together, these measurements provide a clearer view of how campaigns influence consumer behavior throughout the World Cup journey.
From Research to the Road
The FIFA World Cup 2026 presents a unique convergence of attention, emotion, and engagement.
Success will not belong solely to the brands with the largest budgets or the widest reach. It will belong to those who understand where fan attention is going, what emotions are driving engagement, and how to identify moments of genuine intent.
Traditional research helps identify the audience. Neuro-contextual intelligence helps identify the moment.
And during the world's biggest sporting event, that difference can determine whether a campaign is simply seen or truly remembered.
To learn more about the audience insights, emotional signals, and activation opportunities shaping FIFA World Cup 2026 campaigns, download the full Automotive Insights report.
Every year, the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity offers a glimpse into where advertising is heading next. But in 2025, the conversations across the Croisette felt especially revealing.
At the heart of Cannes Lions 2025 was a growing realization that the future of advertising will depend less on identifying audiences and more on understanding people. Across beachfront stages, private dinners, podcast studios, and conversations inside the Palais des Festivals, the industry repeatedly returned to the same challenge: how can brands create more relevant experiences in an increasingly fragmented, AI-driven media landscape?
For Seedtag, Cannes 2025 became an important moment to help shape that conversation.
Throughout the week, Seedtag explored how Neuro-Contextual Advertising is redefining the relationship between media, creativity, and human understanding. From discussions around AI and emotional relevance to debates about journalism, contextual intelligence, and audience mindset, the company’s presence reflected a broader industry shift already reshaping modern advertising.
And now, as the industry prepares for another year in Cannes, France, those conversations are evolving even further.
Key Takeaways
- The Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity highlighted the industry’s move from audience profiling toward deeper human understanding.
- Cannes Lions 2025 conversations focused heavily on AI, contextual relevance, emotional engagement, and privacy-first advertising.
- Seedtag’s Neuro-Contextual approach emerged as part of a broader industry shift toward understanding interest, emotion, and intent.
- Creativity, media, and data became increasingly interconnected across the Cannes Lions International Festival.
- New discussions heading into Cannes 2026 are expanding beyond targeting and toward adaptive, human-aware advertising experiences.
What Cannes Lions 2025 Revealed About Advertising
The International Festival of Creativity has always reflected the priorities of the advertising industry. In 2025, those priorities shifted noticeably.
Artificial intelligence dominated discussions across nearly every stage and meeting space. But while AI remained central, the industry conversation matured significantly compared to previous years. The focus was no longer simply on automation or content generation. Instead, marketers increasingly questioned how technology can help advertising become more meaningful, more adaptive, and more emotionally aligned with people.
That tension defined much of Cannes Lions 2025.
Consumers today move fluidly between streaming platforms, creator ecosystems, social content, sports, commerce, and live cultural moments. Attention is fragmented, audience behavior changes constantly, and traditional identity-based targeting models are becoming less effective in a privacy-first world.
As a result, the industry is beginning to rethink what relevance actually means.
For us at Seedtag, that conversation connected directly to Neuro-Contextual Advertising. Rather than relying on static audience profiles or demographic assumptions, our approach focuses on understanding real-time signals of interest, emotion, and intent across the open web and premium media environments.
The idea is simple: people are more than profiles.
And increasingly, the advertising industry is starting to agree.
From Profiles to Passions
One of the defining conversations during Cannes 2025 centered on the limitations of traditional targeting.
For years, digital advertising has relied heavily on demographic segmentation and behavioral assumptions. But across the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, industry leaders repeatedly discussed the need to move beyond identity alone and focus more deeply on audience mindset, context, and motivation.
We explored this shift directly during the live crossover episode of AdTech Heroes x The Pub Way, hosted at The Drum’s podcast studio.
The conversation brought together leaders from across media, creative, and advertising to discuss how brands can better engage audiences through real-time understanding rather than static assumptions.
A recurring theme emerged quickly: marketers have spent years trying to understand who consumers are, while paying far less attention to why they engage in the first place.
That distinction matters.
People are shaped by passions, interests, emotions, and cultural moments that evolve continuously. Someone watching sports content during a major tournament may not respond to messaging the same way they would while reading financial news or consuming entertainment content later in the day.
Context changes mindset.
This idea became central to many discussions throughout the Cannes Lions International Festival. Relevance is no longer about reaching the right demographic. It is about understanding the emotional and cognitive environment surrounding attention itself.
AI Became About Understanding, Not Just Automation
AI remained one of the dominant themes across Cannes, France, but the industry conversation evolved significantly compared to previous years.
Earlier conversations around AI often focused on speed, scale, and automation. At Cannes Lions 2025, the emphasis shifted toward intelligence, adaptability, and human understanding.
Marketers are now asking more complex questions. How can AI help interpret the audience mindset? How can it improve contextual relevance? How can it support creativity without reducing advertising to generic automation?
These discussions appeared repeatedly across panels, roundtables, and private conversations.
Our perspective centered on the idea that AI should not simply optimize delivery. It should help brands better understand the moments in which people engage with content.
This is where Neuro-Contextual Advertising becomes increasingly relevant.
By combining neuroscience principles with AI-powered contextual understanding, Liz, our Neuo-Contextual AI, is designed to interpret signals of interest, emotion, and intent in real time. The goal is not to identify individuals, but to understand the meaning surrounding the moment itself.
That approach reflects a larger shift happening across the industry.
Advertising is moving away from static targeting systems and toward adaptive environments capable of responding dynamically to changing emotional and contextual signals.
Creativity and Context Are Becoming Reconnected
Another major theme across the Palais des Festivals was the growing relationship between creativity and contextual relevance.
For years, programmatic advertising has often separated creative storytelling from media strategy. But at Cannes Lions 2025, many industry leaders argued that creativity can no longer function independently from context and audience understanding.
As media environments become increasingly fragmented, brands face growing pressure to create campaigns that feel synchronized with the emotional tone surrounding the content experience.
This is especially important across premium video, streaming, and creator-driven ecosystems where audiences expect advertising to feel more integrated and less disruptive.
Throughout the week, conversations increasingly focused on how creative effectiveness improves when messaging aligns with the real-time audience mindset.
That shift is transforming how marketers think about personalization itself.
Rather than personalizing around identity, advertisers are beginning to personalize around context, emotion, and intent.
This idea also appeared in conversations surrounding contextual TV, curated supply, and premium media environments. Brands are looking for advertising experiences that feel more thoughtful, more emotionally aware, and more aligned with the content moments consumers actively choose to engage with.
Journalism, Trust, and Smarter Contextual Understanding
Beyond AI and creativity, Cannes Lions 2025 also highlighted growing industry concerns around journalism, trust, and responsible monetization.
We participated in discussions exploring how rigid keyword blocklists and simplistic brand safety systems can unintentionally harm quality journalism.
This became an important conversation across the International Festival of Creativity because advertisers increasingly recognize that brand safety cannot rely exclusively on broad exclusions or outdated contextual assumptions.
High-quality journalism covering politics, climate, economics, or global conflict often becomes demonetized despite offering trusted, premium environments for advertisers.
That creates a difficult contradiction for the media ecosystem.
The solution discussed throughout Cannes 2025 was not abandoning brand safety altogether, but evolving toward more intelligent contextual systems capable of understanding nuance, tone, and meaning more effectively.
This conversation reinforced one of the industry’s broader shifts: context is becoming more sophisticated.
Modern contextual understanding is no longer limited to keywords alone. It increasingly depends on a deeper interpretation of emotional tone, audience mindset, and environmental relevance.
Looking Ahead to Cannes Lions 2026
As the industry prepares for the next Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, many of the conversations that defined 2025 are continuing to evolve.
This year, we will expand those discussions further at La Perle, our Cannes space designed for meetings, collaborative sessions, workshops, and thought leadership conversations.
The upcoming agenda reflects many of the themes that emerged throughout Cannes Lions 2025.
Sessions such as “The End of Guesswork: How to Reach Consumers Who Are Actually Ready to Listen” will explore how advertisers can move beyond stale targeting proxies and align campaigns with real-time emotion, interest, and intent.
Other conversations will focus on curated supply, contextual TV, AI and creativity, neuroscience, media responsibility, and human-centered advertising experiences.
We will also introduce experiential activations such as the “Scent of Context” lab, an immersive workshop designed to explore how emotion, memory, and sensory environments shape contextual understanding.
Together, these experiences reflect a broader evolution happening across advertising itself.
The industry is no longer asking only how to target people more efficiently. It is asking how to better understand the emotional and cognitive moments that shape attention.
From Profiles to Human Understanding
Looking back, Cannes Lions 2025 represented more than another industry gathering. It reflected a meaningful turning point in how advertising thinks about relevance.
AI became more mature. Context became more intelligent. Creativity became more connected to audience's mindset. And marketers increasingly recognized that understanding people requires more than data points alone.
For us at Seedtag, those conversations continue shaping the future of Neuro-Contextual Advertising.
Because the future of advertising will not belong to the brands that know the most about consumers. It will belong to the brands that understand the moment best.
And increasingly, that future is becoming more human-aware.
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At this point, Google’s intentions to phase out third-party cookies from Chrome are no surprise to anyone. But how has this transition actually played out, and why does the deadline keep getting extended? Google Q1 2024 report, published by The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Google, shared the latest update on the timeline for the phase-out of third-party cookies on Chrome. In the report, Google recognized ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators, and developers, and said they will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. Google also said that the CMA must have sufficient time to review all evidence including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June.
Citing these reasons, Google revealed that they will not be able to complete the phase-out of third-party cookies during the second half of Q4. However, the news doesn’t come as a complete surprise to those who have been following the cookie phase-out space.
Google Chrome third-party cookie depreciation: A timeline
As a part of its broader initiative to improve user privacy and create a more sustainable web ecosystem, Google first announced its intention to deprecate third-party cookies in January 2020.
- After announcing its intention to phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome, Google worked with the web community and engaged with various industry stakeholders to gather feedback, as part of a larger initiative called the Privacy Sandbox, and explore alternative solutions to third-party cookies.
- The Privacy Sandbox initiative introduced a set of proposals for privacy-preserving advertising and measurement solutions.
- Google provided an update on the Privacy Sandbox, outlining potential solutions like Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) for interest-based advertising while preserving user privacy.
- From the original deadline of 2020, Google shifted the phase-out to mid-2023.
- However, Google acknowledged the need for more testing and refinement of Privacy Sandbox APIs before complete removal, pushing back the date again to 2024.
- In late 2023, the testing phase began, and in early 2024, third-party cookies were restricted for 1% of Chrome users. Later that year, Google further expanded the test group to 20% of Chrome users.
- In April 2024, Google announced another delay, pushing back the full phase-out to early 2025, citing ongoing discussions with regulators and the need for further testing.
As it stands today, third-party cookies remain restricted for a portion of Chrome users as testing continues. However, the official phase-out is expected to be completed in early 2025.
You can view the latest update report on the implementation of Google’s Privacy Sandbox here.
The future of advertising
While Google’s plan to phase out third-party cookies will not be complete in 2024; it is merely a delay but imminent. Brands and agencies have already begun opting out of legacy, audience-based targeting practices and embracing privacy-compliant and effective alternatives like contextual advertising.
Leading global brands are using this time to test newer alternatives, better understand them, quantify the value created by these solutions, and how they can be incorporated into targeting playbooks to ensure a smooth transition once cookies inevitably disappear.
Contextual advertising is quickly emerging as one of the most sought-after alternatives to cookie-based targeting practices as it offers a privacy-compliant and non-intrusive way to reach the desired target audience. Powered by next-gen tech like AI, ML, and NLP, contextual advertising analyzes both the written and visual content of a web page, enabling brands to deliver ads on relevant websites that target relevant audiences without the use of cookies.
Powered by Liz, our pioneering AI technology, we at Seedtag offer future-proof, thoroughly tested contextual targeting solutions that find and engage with nuanced audiences and capture their attention by aligning with their current line of interest. Popular brands like KIA, Pedigree, LG, and Garnier have partnered with us to implement a superior AI-powered contextual advertising strategy to achieve higher accuracy and better ROI.
The results?
- KIA saw a 43% increase in brand awareness for contextual ads versus 18% for cookie-based ads
- Pedigree noticed a 61% increase in messaging association
- LG observed a 53% uplift in CTR
Want to learn more about our contextual advertising solutions?
For many years, brands were able to leverage the benefits of third-party cookies to help them identify consumer behavior and target them online with ads. Consumers were not particularly pleased with this approach and considered it an intrusion of privacy. This focus on data privacy became especially relevant in 2020 as online activity sky-rocketed, with most people staying home.
Companies like Apple have already moved to phase out third-party cookies, with Google looking to complete the same by 2024. With acts like GDPR and CCPA put in place by governments, the death of third-party cookies and other means to identify online behavior was welcomed by consumers; advertisers did not share the same enthusiasm.
The marketing and advertising industry has again looked to technology to solve the same challenges technology has created.
Contextual advertising emerged as one of the relatively easy options for companies to adopt and ensure they could still target consumers with some degree of certainty. It showed more significant benefits in targeting, increased sales, improved adherence to brand safety and suitability, and much more.
Reports estimate that the global market for contextual advertising will reach a size of US$335.1 Billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 13.3% over the analysis period.
Contextual advertising is all about analyzing the web page's content and context to determine whether an advertisement is relevant and suitable to that page. The tools in the market today allow brands to study a variety of parameters including keywords, page type,media channel, positive or negative connotations and more, without the use of third-party cookies.
Brands are able to optimize ad positions and deliver relevant and engaging communications with the target audience. The goal of contextual advertising is to make the ads as relevant as possible to the user to increase their chances of clicking on the ad. For example, someone reading a webpage on golf is more likely to buy golfing equipment and related apparel than possibly place an order for fast food.
Contextual advertising is continuously being refined by technologies like AI, machine learning, natural language processing and more. For the longest time, AI was confined to the realms of science fiction, books and movies. However, the science fiction of yesterday has become the reality of today. The advertising world got its first taste of the power of AI when Lexus released an advertisement entirely scripted by AI. By studying over a decade of award-winning car advertisements, Watson from IBM identified the winning elements and put them together in a single ad.
With AI, brands are able to gain actionable insights with regard to context behind digital content beyond just keywords and user behavior. AI is helping brands determine suitability of an ad in correlation to a webpage with greater accuracy, determine optimal spots for ad placement to yield higher returns on ad spend, enhance targeting through real-time analytics, deliver more relevant and personalized experiences to readers and much more.
Marketers and advertisers prefer to leverage AI to palace contextual ads than third-party cookies for various reasons. Some of the top reasons include the following –
- Adherence to data privacy - Third-party cookies have been under scrutiny for their potential impact on consumer privacy. Cookieless advertising methods, such as AI-powered contextual advertising, do not rely on personal data from users to target ads. AI can analyze data from first-party sources to create a complete picture of the user. This includes demographics, first-party customer data, interests, and behavior, which can be used to target ads more accurately.
- Improved targeting – AI algorithms can analyze and understand the context of a webpage or app beyond just text and keywords. These algorithms can optimize ad campaigns by adjusting targeting by studying performance metrics such as click-through and conversion rates to know what ads work in the page's context. AI-based NLP is even able to understand the intent behind a search query, allowing for more accurate ad targeting. AI is also helping brands locate the optimal spots for ad placements so as to ensure maximum return on advertising investments
- Enhanced personalization - Consumers today find most digital ads to be disruptive to their online experience. AI is helping address this challenge by not only finding the best spot to place the ad, but deliver the ability to blend ads into images or video more seamlessly into the larger webpage content, that is more attractive and interesting to readers and enabling a higher quality experience and subsequently returns
- Increased brand safety and suitability – AI algorithms can also identify negative articles, fake news, fraudulent articles, etc., and avoid placing content there to enhance favorability with audiences and avoid financial losses. When going beyond browsing data, AI allows brands to ensure that users see ads in the proper context. AI can also detect and prevent fraud, such as bots clicking on ads, making the advertising ecosystem more secure.
The market spending for AI in marketing is expected to grow significantly in the coming years. According to a report by Markets and Markets, the global market size of AI in marketing is expected to reach USD 40.09 billion by 2025. AI constantly improves, learns, and adapts as needed to make better decisions. This will allow brands to future-proof their targeting efforts and advertising spending as the market evolves. Cookie-less advertising is the future of digital advertising, and AI is set to usher in a new era of contextual advertising. If you are yet to adopt contextual advertising and technologies like AI to improve the return on your marketing investments, contact us at Seedtag today.
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The privacy era will reshape the ad tech landscape, and contextual advertising is set to emerge as a lynchpin for brands looking to adopt effective, privacy-first ad strategies.
According to research, the global digital advertising market is projected to reach 562 billion USD by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 13.8%.
With the progressive loss of effectiveness of third-party cookies and the introduction of data privacy laws, brands must explore privacy-first, future-proof alternatives. Contextual advertising is emerging as a frontrunner as it bridges the gap between privacy and targeting. The traditional practice of relying on personal information will not make the cut going forward.
How Contextual Advertising is Shaping the Future of Advertising
The shift in focus: Quality over Quantity
For the longest time, both advertisers and publishers have relied on data collected through profiling to attract audiences and make ad-buying decisions. The focus has always been on bringing in a large number of general audiences and never on what truly interests them. These traditional methods solely rely on the intrusive collection of personal data not backed by any other privacy-first approach.
This method of automated or programmatic ad buying has had a significant impact on the quality of content online. Programmatic advertising focuses on reaching a broad audience, thus incentivizing publishers to prioritize the volume game and diluting the emphasis on catering to specific audience interests.
But with the spotlight on data privacy laws and the progressive loss of reach of third-party cookies, the emphasis is back on content quality over engaging with generic audience pools. Contextual advertising offers a privacy-compliant alternative to display ads on relevant websites that target relevant audiences beyond just using cookies.
The rise of contextual advertising
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have already made their way into various walks of life, and the advertising industry is no exception. AI-powered contextual advertising has the ability to analyze the written and visual content on a web page and display relevant ads that reach the desired targeted audience.
With rising privacy concerns and the progressive loss of reach of third-party cookies, contextual advertising is poised for significant growth in the coming years. It offers a more privacy-compliant and relevant way to target consumers compared to traditional methods by providing a solution that balances user privacy with effective targeting.
The Role of AI in Contextual Advertising
AI and machine learning are transforming the way digital ads are placed in the advertising industry. By analyzing consumer behavior and the content of web pages in real time, AI-driven ad campaigns ensure that ads are displayed in the most relevant ad space. Evolving at a rapid pace, and brands must adapt to the new reality where third-party data is no longer the gold standard. This method not only increases engagement but also prevents ads from being placed near inappropriate content, ensuring brand safety.
By leveraging first-party data and AI-powered contextual advertising, advertisers can make data-driven decisions without compromising consumer privacy. This privacy-first approach aligns with data protection regulations like GDPR and CCPA, ensuring brands remain compliant while still delivering highly relevant online ads.
A Privacy-First Future of Advertising
Privacy-first marketing strategies will shape the future of advertising as consumers demand more control over their data. As regulations tighten and consumers become more aware of their personal data, businesses that adopt contextual advertising will stay ahead in the digital advertising landscape. Those who fail to embrace it, risks falling behind as the industry shifts towards a more secure, transparent, and ethical future.
Additionally, linear TV is losing its dominance to Connected TV (CTV) and digital platforms, making programmatic advertising and contextual targeting the best strategies for brands looking to maximize ad spending while adhering to data privacy laws. Building niche audience segments, leveraging first-party data, and exploring new-age strategies like CTV advertising are a few among the myriad opportunities contextual advertising offers.
Contextual advertising is not just an alternative to cookie-based tracking; it is the foundation of the future of advertising. By focusing on real-time analysis, AI-powered targeting, and privacy-first approaches, brands can build trust and loyalty with their audiences. Interested to learn more about how you can benefit from contextual advertising?
As the number of consumers moving online grows at a meteoric pace, brands today are doubling down on the effort spent to understand and control what kind of online content their ads run along with. Growing consumer focus on brand reputation and data privacy have every brand treating ad placement with kid gloves.
Until 2019, brands defined their own rules and strategies of what was considered appropriate in the online space. It was in 2019 that the focus on brand safety and brand suitability saw a concrete direction with GARM.
For the uninitiated, GARM stands for the Global Alliance for Responsible Media. It is an industry-led initiative founded in 2019 that aims to improve the safety and sustainability of digital advertising, reduce harmful content online, and promote integrity and accountability in the digital media ecosystem.
Since the standard procedures and guidelines have been defined by representatives of agencies, advertisers, media platforms, and industry bodies, GARM is widely regarded as having set the brand safety and suitability standard for all to follow.
Despite the standards being defined, a report featured in The Guardian in 2020 found that over 100 big brands like Samsung, Decathlon, Audi, L'oreal were unknowingly running their advertisements on YouTube videos on the site that were actively promoting climate misinformation. These incidents highlighted the need for greater transparency and responsibility in digital advertising practices and underscored the importance of initiatives like GARM.
Brands can demonstrate their commitment to responsible advertising practices by aligning with the practice set forth by GARM in the following manner –
- Understand the GARM Framework - A comprehensive grasp of the brand safety floor and suitability framework enables organizations to identify hazardous content and convey an incorrect message about brand values, which can significantly affect consumer perception. Without knowing the tools that one is working with, building a successful concrete campaign would be improbable.
- Audit existing brand campaigns and partners – Once you know what the playing field looks like, you must audit your brand's advertising practices and make changes as necessary to ensure compliance with GARM standards. This is not limited to just the company that owns the brand itself but needs to extend into the larger ecosystem to ensure partners, including media platforms and agencies, and everyone responsible for developing and implementing brand campaigns understands and implements the standards thoroughly. For example, in 2020, Unilever announced that it would stop advertising on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in the United States until at least the end of the year, citing concerns over hate speech and divisive content on the platforms.
- Leverage relevant tools and technologies to monitor the brand: Leverage available technologies and tools, such as brand safety verification services, to monitor where your ads are being placed and ensure that they do not appear next to harmful content. With the growing focus on contextual advertising, brands can leverage advanced tools like AI to determine brand suitability and contextual fit. Brands like P&G and Nestle are already experimenting with AI in market analysis and product development, analyzing ad placements in real-time and ensuring that ads are not appearing next to inappropriate content.
- Given the pace of change in the digital advertising landscape, the renewed interest in contextual advertising, and the bright spotlight focused on brand suitability, it is essential for brands to continuously engage with the GARM community and work with partners who understand how brands can thrive in the digital space.
We at Seedtag understand the digital advertising landscape and possess the relevant technical knowledge to ensure that brands can grow in today's world. Do write to us to know how we can audit and help your brand stay safe by adopting the latest GARM standards.
The cord-cutting era is here! We’re officially in the age where streaming services have changed the course of television and how content is delivered worldwide. As a result, the shift from traditional TV (Linear TV) to Connected TV (CTV) is also impacting the landscape of online ads, making them more dynamic, interactive, and personalized for viewers.
According to a survey, 2023 was the first year non-pay TV households stood at 68.7 million vs. traditional cable at 62.8 million, outnumbering cable connections for the first time in the United States. Broadcast and cable fell below 50% of all TV usage, and Statista revealed that in 2023, 88% of U.S. households owned at least one internet-connected TV device. The number of CTV users totalled more than 110 million among Gen Z and Millennials.
What is CTV? Laying the Foundations for CTV advertising
Connected TV refers to the device that delivers streaming content, a rapidly growing market with increasing popularity. The past years have seen a growing cord-cutting trend, as people are canceling traditional cable and switching to streaming services. Connected TVs have become the most sought-after and popular choice among the masses as they offer a vast library of content beyond traditional channels, the freedom to browse in one's own time, and choose content that aligns with one’s interests.
Connected TVs give users on-demand access to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max which stream movies, TV shows, documentaries, and even live programs. Flexibility, content diversity, convenience, and overall experience are among the top reasons why people increasingly turn to Connected TV.
The change in trend and massive viewership have naturally garnered the attention of advertisers too. Brands want to display their ads where their audiences are, and today, CTV advertising has gained a top spot. CTV advertising allows brands to reach this growing audience base by offering far superior audience targeting capabilities, higher engagement rates, deeper insights, and measurable results.
CTV advertising is transforming the digital ad landscape, allowing brands to reach highly engaged audiences with more precise targeting. Unlike traditional display ads, CTV ads offer immersive, full-screen experiences that drive higher engagement and brand recall.
Advertising tips: How to choose the right CTV partner for your brand
A strong CTV partner should offer advanced ad tech solutions, including programmatic ad buying, to optimize placements and maximize reach. This ensures advertisers can automate their media buying processes efficiently while targeting the right audiences at the right time.
Inventory quality
Advertisers need to be mindful of the quality of the inventory and its relevance to their brand and audience. Brands need to target their audience effectively and avoid irrelevant placements. Rather than choosing any CTV partner based on demographics or audience types, the focus should be contextual relevance. Placing ads that align with the content audiences are engaging which ensures better engagement.
Brands must also know what type of content will accompany the CTV ads. While CTV ads can be placed across various platforms, the inventory must comprise premium and professionally produced content to attract the right audience and capture their attention. The right CTV partner helps advertisers place ads alongside content the audience trusts, thus going beyond just engagement, elevating brand credibility, and increasing brand loyalty.
Brand safety and brand suitability
As advertisers unlock CTV inventory, it is important to ensure ad messaging and placement are optimal. Ads appearing alongside content that is offensive or harmful can have a negative impact on a brand's reputation. Advertisers must pick CTV partners who provide tried and tested brand safety expertise and contextual relevance to suit the brand’s values, messaging, and positioning.
Many CTV partners leverage AI in advertising, using AI-powered tools and AI and machine learning algorithms to analyze metadata and ensure brand safety. They analyze metadata like the descriptions of CTV videos and titles to determine safety and relevance. It’s crucial to go beyond just metadata and analyze the full content of a video to assess safety and suitability. Brands must gain a complete understanding of a video’s suitability before finalizing a campaign or any ad placement.
This approach goes beyond simple keyword scanning, allowing advertisers to understand the full context of video content and make informed decisions on ad placements."
Reporting capabilities
Like any advertising campaign, understanding performance in-depth for attribution measurement is critical for advertisers. Beyond real-time metrics, brands can analyze search results to evaluate audience interest after exposure to CTV ads. The effectiveness of CTV campaigns relies on analyzing party data and other data collected from audience interactions to better understand consumer behavior.
By tracking how often users search for a brand or product after seeing an ad, advertisers can gain deeper insights into brand recall and effectiveness. When picking a CTV partner, brands must analyze what metrics will be accessible to measure the impact of CTV ads. Transparency of campaign performance and reporting is critical to evaluate ROI.
How did the target audience engage with the brand after viewing an ad, what was the viewer intent and how did the ad impact this journey, what action did they take after viewing the ad, etc. are key metrics that advertisers must have access to. Brands must ensure real-time reporting and insights into metrics like impressions, reach, completion rates, and frequency for transparency.
Enhancing CTV Campaigns with Effective Advertising Tips
To maximize the effectiveness of CTV advertising, brands should adopt advertising tips that enhance their overall campaign strategy. Incorporating eye-catching creatives ensures that ads capture audience attention and leave a lasting impression. Additionally, brands should integrate email marketing strategies such as email newsletters to complement CTV ad campaigns and maintain ongoing engagement with their audience.
Using programmatic ad buying can also improve efficiency by automating ad placements, ensuring that brands reach the right audience at the right time. By leveraging AI-driven insights, advertisers can fine-tune their CTV advertising efforts and optimize results.
Introducing Contextual TV by Seedtag
Seedtag’s latest offering for the Connected TV ecosystem, Contextual TV aims to extend our contextual expertise to enable brands to activate strong CTV campaigns with precise targeting capabilities that go beyond the standard targeting practices.
CTV has now become one of the most effective ways to target audiences, especially the new generations like the Millenials and Gen Z, who have cut the cord. For over a decade, we at Seedtag have been empowering brands to effectively connect with their audiences using our unmatched technology that provides superior targeting capabilities and user understanding.
With Contextual TV, we’re not just adapting to trends, but actively helping to shape the future of advertising in the CTV space. Brands can now leverage open web benefits for the big screen, eliminating today’s limitations of targeting precision and reporting in the CTV advertising landscape.
- Combining the Open Web with Connected TV empowers brands to explore, uncover untapped opportunities, and engage with the right audience at the right time with the right message.
- Comprehensive reporting options to ensure you truly understand the effectiveness of your campaigns.
- Engaging creatives that garner audience attention.
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Trust, reputation, review, and recommendations play a critical role among consumers today, during any decision-making process. Customers want to purchase from a reputed brand. Thus, brands invest significant budget and workforce to ensure their image and reputation are built and safeguarded at all times.
The public's overall perception of a brand is forged over a period based on the brand’s values, messaging, reviews, and the customer’s interactions and experiences with the brand. The brand image focuses on the messages a business intends to convey through marketing, design, and communication efforts. Brand reputation reflects trustworthiness, ethics, reliability, the quality of their products or services, and the high-quality advertising content they create and place.
Advertising plays a key role in making or breaking a brand’s image and reputation: The messaging and creatives floated by brands through their ads are a direct reflection of their ideas and values. So, the ads a brand creates and where it chooses to place them have a crucial impact on consumer perception. Effective ad campaigns should take into consideration brand safety, ensuring that the messaging aligns with the company’s values and avoids harmful contexts.
For example, a children's toy company running ads on a website or article that features explicit language or violent content can negatively impact how they are perceived. Similarly, a brand that sells vitamins or fitness products placing ads on a platform that promotes unhealthy lifestyle choices and dangerous behaviors such as extreme dieting or risky physical activities, it goes against its fundamental values.
Brand safety: The need of the hour
Today, there is an ever-increasing need to be mindful of the advertising content created and where they are showcased, making way for the implementation of brand safety and suitability measures. These advertising practices aim to shield a brand's image and reputation from being negatively impacted by online advertising placements.
Whether it is social media or the web universe, ad placement plays a critical role in ensuring brands avoid content that may harm their image, maintain trust with consumers, and build their reputation. To protect your brand’s image, it is essential to ensure that your ads do not appear in inappropriate contexts or next to harmful content. So, the focus lies in making sure brand ads do not show up next to content that could be considered harmful or inappropriate.
Factors pose a threat to brand safety in today’s digital landscape
- Placing ads in inappropriate or controversial contexts using exclusion lists, etc.
- Ad placement alongside unrelated or conflicting content.
- Brand presence besides fake news or misinformation, preventing ads from showing alongside unrelated or harmful content.
- Losing precious advertising dollars to ad fraud on dubious websites set up to generate false clicks.
- Data breaches or data privacy violations of precious consumer information.
The deprecation of third-party cookies has already put contextual advertising as a front runner in the digital landscape. However, contextual AI’s ability to ensure the highest levels of brand safety and suitability is another reason that makes contextual ads an ideal alternative to cookie-based advertising practices. Contextual advertising and AI advertising enable a brand to target relevant audiences while ensuring the ads align with its values, thus protecting its reputation.
The spotlight on brand safety and brand suitability
Contextual advertising relies on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to deliver ads on relevant websites that target relevant audiences without the use of cookies. Contextual advertising’s Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities go a step further and have the ability to understand nuances in language and semantically interpret editorial content.
By analyzing the written and visual content of a page, contextual advertising offers brands an environment where the values and ideas seamlessly fit with their image and values, thus ensuring the highest levels of brand safety. Additionally, brand suitability helps bridge the divide between risk and opportunity and provides context-based protections.
The merge of brand safety and suitability
It helps brands elevate their targeting strategy:
- Shields your brand image and reputation from any negative impact
- Prevents your ads from appearing alongside harmful or inappropriate content
- Aligns ad placement with content that reflects brand identity and values .
- Places ads where they resonate with the right audience.
What can we expect of the future of brand safety and suitability
With brand safety and suitability, brands can navigate tricky spaces where there is a risk of exposure to controversial and harmful content. For instance, a website that focuses on financial news might cover some topics that brands might deem unsafe. However, websites that cover topics like finance or the stock market might be a great bet for a luxury watch brand. Therefore, strategic ad placement plays an important role in maximizing opportunity and impact.
As we venture into the future of digital marketing, the combination of brand safety and suitability emerges as a guiding light for brands seeking to safeguard their reputation while maximizing their reach. By embracing contextual advertising and its contextual AI capabilities, brands can confidently navigate the complexities of online advertising, secure in the knowledge that their message is not just heard, but heard in the right place, at the right time, by the right audience.
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Connected TV or CTV advertising is swiftly becoming a core advertising strategy as internet-connected televisions take over households and the interest shifts towards content streaming platforms. Leichtman Research Group reported that 88% of US households own at least one Internet-connected TV device. The number of adults in the United States households who watch videos on a TV via a connected device daily rose from 6% in 2013 to a staggering 49% in 2023.
Audience inclination toward CTV from traditional television has shifted the spotlight to CTV advertising, making it the next big thing in the ad tech space for brands seeking to reach their target audiences. Brands need to be where their audiences are and make their presence felt. With the audience behavior shifting toward streaming platforms, understanding consumer behavior is essential for brands to adapt their advertising strategies accordingly. Likewise, dedicating a significant amount of time in their day-to-day to spend on streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and Hulu; it is only obvious that brands are changing gears in their ad strategies and allocating more more advertising budgets to CTV ads.
Beyond just the viewership
While the rising viewership numbers are an important factor that is shining the light on CTV advertising, another critical aspect is brand safety. Maintaining brand reputation is imperative in today’s chaotic digital landscape where there are myriad stories, news pieces, opinions, and debates. As a more regulated and transparent medium, Connected TV offers a safer space for brands to engage with the audience in the digital age.
Brand safety refers to the practice of protecting a brand's online reputation and image by taking steps to prevent its ads from appearing alongside inappropriate or harmful content. For example, no brand would want its ads to appear next to content about hate speech or terrorism. Similarly, a fast food chain will not want ads to appear in an article about heart attacks or a travel company’s ad next to news around layoffs or economic downturns.
Tackling Ad Fraud and Viewability in the CTV Advertising Landscape
As CTV advertising continues to shape the modern advertising landscape, brands must also consider the impact of ad fraud and viewability challenges. Unlike traditional TV, where ad placements are predetermined, CTV operates in a dynamic digital environment where fraudsters exploit loopholes through practices like device spoofing and invalid traffic.
To ensure both brand safety and budget efficiency, advertisers must leverage advanced verification tools and collaborate with trusted ad tech partners. Implementing AI-driven fraud detection and adopting programmatic transparency measures will help brands safeguard their campaigns from wasted ad spend and reputational damage.
Brand safety and Connected TV (CTV)
A survey revealed that 70% of advertisers felt brand safety incidents impacted their campaigns. It also showed that 67% of brands said they believe they are taking a serious financial risk by not addressing brand safety online. 37% of brands have experienced a brand safety issue and the worldwide advertising dollars wasted due to a lack of brand safety in 2019 was estimated to be $14.8 billion.
While there is transparency in the inventory and regulations in the space, CTV advertising is still a struggle for brands and advertisers when it comes to a buying environment. They need a more in-depth understanding of the inventory and where their ads will appear. With no industry-wide protocols in place yet and a lack of transparency on what marketers are buying, the need of the hour is visibility. Brands and marketers need real-time visibility of ad placement to prevent their ads from appearing in inappropriate or harmful environments and requiere to be watchful of ad placement to prevent their ads from appearing in inappropriate or harmful environments.
A mix of reputable inventory sources and contextual relevance is a tactic many brands are opting for to overcome the brand safety issues that the sought-after CTV advertising currently poses. Analyzing and reviewing media buying at a content level can help alleviate brand safety concerns by ensuring the content is not just safe but relevant too.
With contextual advertising-backed CTV targeting, brands can address both brand safety and brand suitability. By analyzing the content and context of shows, contextual targeting empowers brands to place their ads alongside the most brand-safe and relevant content. Users are more likely to engage with an ad that aligns with the content they are currently viewing, thus driving engagement and ad recall by garnering more impactful consumer attention.
Relevant and engaging content creates a great connection with the user, increases the time users spend on an ad, and goes beyond just visibility to deliver meaningful engagement. CTV ads bolstered by contextual targeting help brands better navigate the relatively new ad space, improve ad targeting, deliver more impactful outcomes, and enhance the overall brand impression.
The Future of Brand Safety in CTV Advertising
n today’s evolving advertising landscape, winning brand safety in CTV advertising requires a multi-faceted approach that combines transparency, technology, and strategic media buying. As brands continue to shift budgets toward CTV, adopting proactive safety measures, such as contextual targeting, premium inventory selection, and third-party verification, will be key to maintaining brand integrity. By staying ahead of industry developments and investing in secure advertising practices, brands can maximize the potential of CTV advertising while ensuring their message reaches the right audience in a safe and suitable environment.
In today’s privacy-first world, , cookie-based targeting has been a central pillar that both advertisers and publishers have relied on heavily for decades. According to a Deloitte survey, the average projected revenue risk ranged from around $91 million to $203 million per year, with some companies risking upward of $300 million in revenue. A Google study showed that for the top 500 global publishers, the average publisher revenue decreased by 52% with a median per-publisher decline of 64%.
Publishers who have exclusively relied on third-party cookies have begun to feel the heat. Much like advertisers, publishers have been evaluating other strategies to help them grow their revenue while remaining privacy-compliant. Beyond business-as-usual, the progressive loss of signal and reach of cookies presents publishers an opportunity to future-proof their business and generate new revenue streams. This approach is not just a short-term fix, but a sustainable, long-term strategy to future-proof the business against privacy changes.
How are publishers riding the Data Privacy-First World wave?
Publishers are looking to continue to expand their readership and audience trust and audience trust in a privacy-first world, where privacy compliance and transparent data usage are becoming paramount. While large tech companies have traditionally dominated the advertising space, publishers are now taking more control over their ad inventories through privacy-compliant solutions.
Topics API is the Privacy Sandbox entrant that was initially introduced as an alternative to third-party cookies, to enable privacy-first, interest-based advertising. To make the most out of Topics, publishers and advertisers must use them with other tools to develop more innovative marketing strategies that cater to the new-age audiences.
Leveraging First-Party Data for Better Targeting
While third-party data has been a staple for targeting, publishers are increasingly focusing on first-party data, which is more reliable and privacy-compliant. Information that audiences willingly share can be used alongside Topics for a more tailored and relevant targeting approach. First-party data is a gold mine that publishers can leverage to monetize audiences and boost revenue numbers. Secure collation of first-party data is essential to collate privacy-safe media that can be monetized by publishers, but they must be cautious with personal data, ensuring that they only use it with user consent and in accordance with privacy regulations with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to avoid potential legal risks.
"The amount of data publishers can collect from first-party sources is growing, allowing for more personalized and relevant ad targeting".
Evaluating and Upgrading Tech Stacks to Enable Privacy-Safe Data Collaboration
Publishers are working towards evaluating their current tech stacks and upgrading them to create more data clean rooms that enable privacy-safe media collaboration. Publishers can collaborate with advertisers and monetize the data by giving them access to the valuable repository. Effective consent management is crucial for publishers to ensure that the data they collect is used appropriately and in compliance with privacy regulations.
AI-Powered Contextual Advertising: Boosting Monetization and User Experience
AI-powered contextual advertising offers publishers a cookie-free solution that aces targeting and better utilizes first-party data. Contextual ads are proving to be a game-changer for publishers by enabling them to navigate privacy regulations and create a sustainable monetization strategy.
- Contextual AI analyzes the written content of a page and empowers publishers to provide advertisers with an environment that offers the highest levels of brand safety and suitability. Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities of contextual advertising enable understanding of nuances in language and the ability to semantically interpret editorial content. Brand suitability bridges the divide between risk and opportunity and provides context-based protections for advertisers and publishers. Brand safety ensures they steer clear of any negative or harmful content that can impact user perception and damage the reputation of publishers or advertisers.
- With contextual ads, publishers can have a higher impact on users as they are relevant ads displayed alongside high-quality content. The ads are more relevant and impactful as they speak more directly and personally with the readers, increasing the likelihood of users paying attention and engaging with contextual ads. Publishers who host contextual ads unlock a new, steady revenue stream as the relevance to the content users are currently consuming increases brand recall. Better brand recall and ROI on dollars spent increase the chances of advertisers continuing to buy inventory. By using AI-powered contextual advertising, publishers can expect higher conversion rates as ads are more relevant to the audience’s interests.
- Contextual advertising also enables publishers to enhance the overall user experience. Contextual ads are more relevant to the real-time interests of users, are less intrusive, and do not hamper their browsing experience. A more pleasant overall experience will help publishers grow their readership as users are more likely to come back and recommend them to other readers. It allows publishers to focus on reaching and engaging the right audience, ensuring that the ads displayed are highly relevant and impactful.
Collaborating with a contextual partner will help publishers unearth new monetization opportunities and provide a superior user experience. Engaging creatives, content alignment, and intelligent ad placement ensure contextual ads are seamlessly integrated with the on-page content, thus maximizing visibility, impact, and revenue potential.
Embracing a Privacy-First World for Sustainable Growth
We have partnered with over 11,900+ digital publishers across the globe, and our combination of relevant data and new-age technology helps them make the most out of every ad placement in a privacy-first world. 80% higher viewability, 15% longer in-view time, and 1.3% more click-throughs; our unique, data-backed targeting strategies and innovative methods like custom AI, backed by our in-house contextual AI solution, Liz, have delivered exceptional results when compared to exclusively relying on cookie-based targeting practices.
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The ad tech world is steadily shifting to more inclusive and privacy-centric advertising practices that align with the requisites of consumers and data privacy regulations. Fundamentally, audience categorization has largely been based on the demographics and past behavior patterns of users. This practice is based on assumptions and stereotypes that are limiting, not always accurate, and relies on third-party cookies.
The audience selection and classification process plays a crucial role in determining the success of an ad campaign. By collecting data from various sources, advertisers leverage data to display ads to users based on their assumed interests, hobbies, and browsing activities. The main data points include -
- The websites and apps a user chooses to visit, browsing patterns and interactions, and what kind of content they engage with
- Demographics like age, gender, and location
- Interests listed by the user on platforms like social media
- Third-party data
Using this data, marketers profile potential customers who are most likely to buy their product or service and target their ads to those individuals.
What is interest-based targeting?
Consumers have become increasingly apprised of digital advertising practices and are well-informed about their data and personal information being collected whenever they are online. The increase in awareness and rising frustration of consumers around data privacy resulted in the decision to phase out third-party cookies and governments implementing more stringent data privacy regulations. Marketers are facing several restrictions today and the conventional audience categorization and targeting practices will result ineffective as they are built on stereotypes and assumptions, and are not privacy compliant.
While traditional advertising practices reach a broader audience, they are not necessarily effective as everyone who views the ad might not be interested in the product/service, leading to wasted ad spend. Consumers have access to a plethora of information and are bombarded with hundreds of ads daily. A blanket targeting approach sans any personalization or relevance is not just ineffective but could have a negative impact as it disrupts the user journey. Additionally, consumers are also using ad blockers to avoid traditional ads while streaming services give them the option to skip ads.
New-age targeting goes well beyond the conventional, identity-based targeting approach and focuses on a user’s current areas of interest and the context of the content they consume. Breaking away from stereotypes, interest-based targeting is held as a more effective, non-intrusive, and privacy-centric alternative.
The rise of interest-based targeting in the cookieless world
Contextual targeting is a strategy that focuses on categorizing consumers based on what they are interested in at present, by displaying ads that align with the content they are consuming on a web page or app. When the on-page content and context align with the ads, it ensures a seamless, privacy-centric, and non-intrusive customer experience. Interest-based targeting enables personalization and allows marketers to tailor ads to individual preferences, thus enhancing relevance and engagement. Users are more likely to engage and resonate with the ad because it aligns with what they are looking for in the moment and since the ads blend with the content they are reading, the ads don’t hamper their browsing experience.
Seedtag Contextual Audiences help brands go beyond conventional targeting practices and engage with users based on what they are looking for or interested in at the moment. Powered by Liz©, our pioneering AI technology, custom AI, contextual categories, images, and cookieless sociodemographic models, allows brands to target an audience base that’s diverse, inclusive, and relevant. Our Contextual Audiences evolve from customer input and diverse market research enabling brands to build unique and dynamic audience categories to suit specific business needs.
Interest-based targeting practices like contextual targeting empower marketers to appeal to a more relevant customer base with ads that align with their real-time interests. Contextual ads appear at the most optimal time and place with tailored messaging without violating privacy, thus helping brands reach the desired audiences with a targeting capability that is more flexible and accurate. With interest-based targeting, brands can capture user attention at the ideal moment without relying on cookies, and overcome the limitations of rigid taxonomies and stereotypes.
With Seedtag Contextual Audiences, brands can build a hyper-personalized target group. Backed by AI, this unique targeting capability provides flexibility, scale, and higher accuracy. To know more about the exclusive offering and types of contextual audiences, contact us.
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With the demise of the third-party tracking cookie just months away for Chrome users, digital advertisers who have yet to begin preparations need to catch up swiftly to navigate the transition successfully.
One of the primary alternatives to the deterministic data enabled by cookies is Google’s Privacy Sandbox, which the company describes as “a series of proposals to satisfy cross-site use cases without third-party cookies or other tracking mechanisms.” Initially composed to include audience models like Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLOC), which was sunsetted in 2022, the Privacy Sandbox includes Protected Audiences (formally known as FLEDGE or “First Locally-Executed Decision over Groups Experiment”) and other APIs that will undoubtedly dictate the contours of the market to come. Businesses across the ecosystem should consider the following details when preparing.
Reevaluating The Focus: Beyond IP Addresses
In the past, digital advertising heavily relied on tracking users through cookies and IP addresses. Protected Audiences and Google Topics moves away from this practice, emphasizing a more privacy-focused approach. It presents a challenge and an opportunity for marketers to improve performance on a device level without resorting to invasive tracking methods.
A crucial aspect of working with Google Topics is to integrate contextual information with situational and device-specific data provided by Google Topics signals. The zip code, for instance, can be a valuable contextual signal. By combining these data sources, advertisers can gain a better understanding of users' preferences and needs, all while respecting their privacy. This approach opens the door to a new world where the cohort can contribute to a more nuanced contextual understanding.
The Evolution Of Performance Marketing
As Protected Audiences and Topics contextual models become increasingly relevant, performance marketers need to adapt to the changing landscape. This transformation involves elongating the marketing funnel and focusing on strategies beyond traditional last-click attribution.
- First-Click Strategies. Performance marketers can adopt first-click strategies to recapture email addresses for retargeting or directly upload data from CRM systems. This shift might result in a longer turnaround time, possibly extending from a six-day window to 10-15 days. However, the potential benefits in terms of privacy and engagement could make it worthwhile.
- Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO). With privacy concerns taking center stage, it's essential to shift from audience-centric advertising to context-centric advertising. DCO allows advertisers to tailor content to the context of the page rather than focusing solely on the audience. This approach ensures that ads remain relevant while respecting user privacy.
- Redefining Retargeting. Retargeting is evolving. Instead of relying solely on traditional methods, marketers can explore new avenues like email retargeting and mobile site optimizations. These practices add value for the user, offering content, discount codes, tips and trends. It's a broader approach to content marketing, where the emphasis is on reengaging with users in a more meaningful way. Loyalty programs can also play a significant role in this transformation, allowing users to choose their preferred engagement strategies.
- Contextual Lookalikes. One exciting development in this landscape is the emergence of contextual lookalikes. This approach leverages first-party data, whether it's cookie-based or segmentation data, to identify commonalities among users. Instead of relying on tracking and personal data, contextual lookalikes provide a privacy-friendly way to find users with similar interests and behaviors.
In the coming transition, choosing the right partners is crucial. Marketers should seek out tech-forward partners who are committed to responsible and privacy-conscious advertising practices. It's important to avoid partners engaged in arbitrage or those who use "AI" as a copout without a genuine commitment to user privacy.
The Importance Of Retooling Analytics
As performance marketing evolves, it's crucial to retool analytics. Media mix modeling remains essential, even if it's probabilistic. Marketers should look closely at unit economics that can lead to conversion metrics. For instance, understanding the return on ad spend (ROAS) as a "three to one" ratio requires a deep understanding of the step functions involved. This level of analysis is more critical now than ever as privacy and user consent become paramount.
The era of the Privacy Sandbox and its two main APIs, Protected Audience and Topics, signals a significant shift in the world of digital advertising. Performance marketers must adapt to these changes by embracing contextual models, moving away from invasive tracking methods and respecting user privacy. Strategies that elongate the marketing funnel, focus on context over audience and leverage first-party data offer a path forward. By selecting tech-forward partners and retooling analytics, marketers can navigate this evolving landscape successfully, ensuring both effective advertising and user privacy.
By Mike Villalobos, VP of Strategy and Partnerships at Seedtag.
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From browsers like Firefox, Safari, and Opera completely banning third-party cookies to their complete demise in 2024 with Google’s phase-out of cookies; all eyes are on privacy and global regulations. The end of third-party cookies marks the beginning of a new era in advertising as the go-to targeting practice worldwide will become obsolete.
In a survey conducted by Statista, 75% of marketers revealed that they heavily relied on third-party cookies. 45% of respondents stated spending at least half of their marketing budgets on cookie-based advertising. With the fundamentals of audience tracking, targeting, and personalization becoming obsolete, there is a lot of debate around what will be the next best approach for audience targeting that will give marketers a competitive edge.
How are marketers preparing for the cookieless world?
Among the options marketers are evaluating, contextual advertising has been one effective stand-out targeting alternative that has gotten the nod from leading global brands. Contextual advertising is backed by new-age tech like AI, ML, and NLP, paving the way for personalized and impactful advertising in the privacy-first world.
Another alternative that has been around for a while but has garnered more importance ever since the deprecation of third-party cookies is first-party data. First-party data is collected with the knowledge and consent of users when they interact with a brand’s website or advertisement, or purchase a product. However, first-party data is not a magic formula. When utilized individually, first-party data lacks the ability to scale, enhance the precision of audience segmentation, or improve ad placement.
Contextual advertising is scalable and allows marketers to create custom audiences. This opens doors to never-seen-before opportunities and delivers advertising strategies that go beyond traditional metrics like impressions and CTRs. Contextual ads rank high across impactful attention metrics that provide insights into more quantifiable data like the quality of user engagement and campaign efficacy. Contextual advertising aces granularity, accuracy, and relevance by placing ads based on the content and context of web pages, thus helping marketers go beyond stereotypical audience segmentation practices that rely on audience demographics, past browsing patterns, and assumptions.
It also ensures enhanced levels of brand safety and brand suitability. Its ability to understand nuances in language and interpret the meaning of content used within a given context empowers brands to avoid harmful or negative content and maximize opportunities. With AI-powered contextual targeting, marketers can display ads in environments where the messaging aligns with a brand’s values and positioning.
Maximizing impact with the duo
What if marketers could take contextual advertising up a couple more notches? By utilizing precious first-party data repositories along with contextual advertising, marketers can further fine-tune their strategy and maximize the impact of a campaign. Based on the audience information derived from first-party data, audiences can be further segmented based on factors like age group, gender, or location. Since this data is collated with user consent, it is compliant with all privacy regulations. With first-party data-backed audience categorization, marketers can tailor messaging to suit very specific audience segments.
For example, with the combination of intel from first-party data with contextual advertising, a brand can target its repeat customer base with a new product launch or launch an exclusive privé members-only sale. Campaigns and messaging are more tailored and relevant to the target audience, driving more impact and ROI. It can also be used to create geo-specific campaigns during a particular time of the year or during festivals that are more prominent in a particular location. For celebrations like Valentine’s Week, curated gifting ideas or product collections can be showcased to specific genders and age groups to drive more engagement.
Fueling contextual advertising with first-party data will empower marketers to strengthen their strategies and create high-impact campaigns that connect with the desired audiences. The duo ensures seamless, privacy-centric, and non-intrusive experiences that customers love.
Interested to learn more about contextual advertising and its capabilities?
Cue Lover by Taylor Swift…It’s Cupid’s time of the year and the hearts are all afloat. From roses to teddy bears, cards, and jewelry, romance is brewing strong. Couples are on the lookout for the perfect date nights and the ideal gifts to present their loved ones. World over, Valentine’s Day is one of the highlights of February.
In today’s rapidly changing environment, seasonal events like Valentine’s unfold every other day. It is important for brands to not just track, but truly understand these special occasions to capitalize on them. We analyzed the evolution of content creation and its consumption to show how this day impacts the open web. In 2023, Valentine's Day was an engaging and relevant topic, with a particular interest in high-profile couples and commercial promotions. The data showed a steady increase in the number of views as Valentine's Day approached, peaking on February 20th, with the top articles indicating a mix of celebrity news, product promotions, and romantic rumors.
So what’s trending this Valentine’s?
According to our 2024 analysis, the interest in content is mirroring a pattern very similar to that of the previous year. However, we are experiencing a higher viewership when compared to the same time period last year. As a result, we anticipate a substantial increase in views, with the peak expected to reach a staggering 500,000 views on the most prominent days!
The top category with over 15% article distribution is events and attractions, followed by pop culture and family and relationships hovering over 10%. Travel, music and audio, food and drink, and movies are the next set of categories with a 5 - 10% distribution. The last 3 in the top 10 are television, home and garden, and sports.
What are the areas of interest of the Valentine's Day-focused audience?
- Garnering over 2.82M impressions, Love Life is a key interest area where the content centers on the romantic journeys of individuals. The content interest ranges from finding a partner to tying the knot and building a family. The top keywords include power couple, baby son, beautiful family, heartfelt message, closeness, life together, and happy marriage.
- Love life is followed by Celebrities Relationships with 2.4M impressions. The content shines the spotlight on well-known celebrities and public figures, delving into the intricacies of their breakups, romantic escapes, and the elaborate ways in which they celebrate Valentine's Day. Some prominent keywords are relationship timeline, Georgina, Kardashians, Gigi, Love Island, couple, Taylor Swift, celebrity news, and daily celebrity.
- Up next is the much-talked-about Valentine’s Day Plans with 2.32M impressions. This genre places the importance on enhancing the celebration of love and connection through activities and arrangements that couples can enjoy together. This includes keywords like a romantic date, hotel, romantic stroll, romantic dinner, laser tag, authentic Italian, night sky, and outdoor adventure.
- With 2.05M impressions, Rom-Coms are next in line, emphasizing the charm of romantic comedy films and the relaxed, comforting atmosphere they provide. Some trending keywords are Ryan Gosling, Love Actually, Dicaprio, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Aniston, comedy film, streaming platform, and pride.
- Valentine’s Day Presents come in fifth, gathering 1.53M + impressions by throwing light on the importance of thoughtful presents as a tangible expression of love and appreciation, thus enhancing the romantic connection. The top keywords are gift box, wishlist, Etsy, gift card, pet shop, spa treatment, happy valentine, chocolate, and jewelry.
These areas of interest and keywords are unique to this Valentine’s season. Seasonal audiences have a high affinity for particular environments within the content universe. Brands must engage with this audience pool by sharing the right messaging within their realm of interest at the most optimal time. This requires a shift from the ordinary.
Move beyond traditional audience segmentation based on stereotypes and go contextual to deliver a scalable strategy for the open web. With Seasonal Audiences powered by Liz, brands can engage audiences with a privacy-centric strategy during the peak of specific global seasonal events like Valentine’s Day.
As the phase-out of third-party cookies begins, marketers worldwide are pondering over ideal alternatives and weighing in on what could be the ideal replacement solutions. The DoubleVerify report, Post-Cookie Questions: The Evolution of Advertising Strategies and Sentiments revealed that publishers and advertisers are divided on which solutions they believe hold the greatest promise in replacing cookie-dependent solutions. 47.3% of publishers said publisher first-party data activation was their top choice while 49% of advertisers picked advertiser first-party data activation. Social media targeting, Google Topics, Attention-based metrics, and contextual advertising were among the other solutions.
Interestingly, the report also found that 96% of publishers surveyed said that contextual advertising capabilities will be important for their businesses in 2023. 94% of advertisers stated they were planning to rely on contextual advertising for some or most of their buys in 2023. However, contextual targeting has significantly evolved over the past few years, transforming from a mere cookie-replacement alternative to a must-have strategy for future-proof, privacy-first advertising.
The magic of AI-powered contextual targeting
Today, contextual targeting is backed by AI, ML, and NLP capabilities that enable the possibility to go beyond just keywords, understand nuances in language, and semantically interpret content. Contextual targeting’s ability to understand the meaning and sentiment of full pages of content with their complete context is opening doors to several new targeting possibilities.
For example, let’s take an article titled Makeup for Everyone: Organic products for all skin tones and types. Earlier, contextual targeting’s capability was limited to identifying that it is an article on makeup products in a lifestyle publication. The new and enhanced contextual targeting understands and interprets that it is an article on organic beauty products for people of different skin types and colors.
Contextual targeting’s ability to derive that level of granular detail about an article ergo means a heightened understanding of the readership, their mindset, and interests; fundamentally changing the way audiences are segmented and targeted. Advertisers can leverage pre-defined contextual audiences, modify them, or even build their own personalized audience segments based on who they want to reach with a particular message.
Displaying a vegan beauty product ad to women who are interested in premium beauty products that are cruelty-free, vegan, and suitable for acne-prone skin; that’s the level of granularity, accuracy, and relevance contextual targeting brings to the table. It presents an opportunity for advertisers to look beyond conventional, stereotypical audience segmentation and targeting practices that are not very detailed or precise.
Contextual targeting: More than just a cookie deprecation alternative
Contextual targeting fueled by AI is not just an option or alternative but a door to a whole new world of possibilities in digital advertising. Advertisers and publishers can finally look beyond standard taxonomies, demographics, traditional cohorts, or off-the-shelf audience segments. It’s a chance to finally break free from the ordinary and meet users within their realm of current interests, at the right time. Contextual targeting empowers advertisers to unearth new opportunities and capitalize on those that were overlooked or never even considered before. While zero and first-party data gain more importance, contextual targeting can help brands maximize the impact they can create using this data repository.
Contextual targeting’s ability to understand the meaning of content within a set context significantly boosts brand safety and brand suitability as it avoids any negative or harmful content and provides brands an environment where the values and ideas fit seamlessly with their own. In the ever-evolving digital landscape, contextual targeting presents an opportunity for advertisers to level up their strategy and win big. The difference lies in the approach; marketers who look at contextual targeting as just an option to overcome the privacy limitations won’t reap much when compared to those who go all in to make the most out of it.
Ready to shift gears and embrace new-age contextual targeting?
The Consumer Electronic Show, CES, by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) was once again one of the world's most powerful and sort-after tech events this year, setting the tone for all things innovation in 2024. Packed with conferences, exhibits, and more, the world's most influential business leaders, industry advocates, and pioneering thinkers were all at the CES trade show to meet and hear from global innovators on the year’s breakthrough technologies and latest releases. From 3D printing to AI, marketing & advertising, and robotics, CES showcased the latest from myriad industries like manufacturers, developers, and suppliers of consumer technology hardware.
CES brings the industry together to discuss the most salient trends in the advertising and tech industry. The networking possibilities and quick interactions are valuable as it is a knowledge-sharing opportunity for business leaders. These conversations help leaders identify trends and analyze market positioning for the year ahead.
We at Seedtag were thrilled to be at CES 2024! At our exclusive Rejuvenation Suite in the ARIA hotel, we discussed cookie deprecation, CTV advancements, and the reimagination of audiences through Seedtag’s Contextual Audiences. One of the biggest events for the advertising industry, this year was the biggest and most well-attended CES yet!
What’s hot: Standout technological innovations from CES 2024
This year's themes largely revolved around Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its future, next-gen television sets, and Augmented/Mixed reality (AR/VR). The specific use cases of AI have been discussed and leveraged over the past few years. But this year, AI was a central theme as presenters showcased deeper integration into various technologies and gadgets, changing the way humans interact with devices.
The automotive sector also showcased advancements in tech and how they are being integrated into vehicles. Television sets have always been a highlight at CES and this year was no exception. From 8K displays to bigger and smarter TVs, there is a lot of innovation happening in the television space that was on showcase.
What’s top of mind for consumers?
Privacy has taken center stage as the world continues the conversation around consumer privacy. People have voiced their strong opinion about the need for data privacy and transparency on how their data is captured and utilized.
New data privacy protection laws and rising consumer demands are making way for a paradigm shift in marketing strategies as advertisers are mindful of the need for change in the way they collate and utilize user data. The new era of advertising demands marketers to strike the right balance between personalization and privacy while delivering a seamless user experience.
Another big shift has been the sheer volume of streaming platforms over the past few years. The global change in content consumption patterns has made way for the addition of a whole new ad-based tier to subscription platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime. This shift has opened doors to a new channel of advertising for marketers as they rethink their strategies for the domain and make streaming a key aspect of their ad budgets.
The future landscape of digital advertising
The innovations and topics of discussion at CES 2024 have brought key aspects of digital advertising to life by shining light on the need for transformation to keep up with new-age tech and evolving trends. Marketers need to re-evaluate their strategies to ensure they comply with data privacy laws and cater to the evolving demands of customers. Advertising strategies need to go beyond mere clicks or views and focus on curating a personalized, relevant, and seamless brand experience that amass genuine attention.
As AI makes its way into various walks of life, right from audience categorization to ad creatives, content, and placement, it is revolutionizing the advertising space. Contextual AI is gaining significant popularity as marketers want to leverage AI to help them enhance their understanding of consumer interests and deliver ads on relevant websites that target relevant audiences without the use of cookies.
Key takeaways from CES 2024
Here’s our SVP of East Coast Sales, Lora Feinman’s take on what you need to know from this year’s trade show:
- It is the year of AI
AI has the potential to help businesses save time and money by enhancing workflows. It impacts multiple areas of marketing and will continue to be a huge focal point for marketers. They will leverage AI to understand more about a brand’s competitive edge and how to improve the overall customer experience.
- The evolution of Digital and Streaming Media
CES 2024 highlighted the industry's transition from traditional to streaming platforms, with a specific focus on streaming services and digital media. Notably, free, ad-supported streaming services and ad-based tiers in subscription platforms like Prime Video, Netflix, and Disney+ signify a significant shift in content consumption trends. This shift indicates increased investment and opportunities in streaming, prompting a reconsideration of advertising strategies. he introduction of ad-supported tier options intensified the rivalry, with Netflix reporting an increase to 23 million monthly active global users. Disney made a strong impact with its in-person Tech & Data Showcase, emphasizing shoppable TV, data clean rooms, programmatic advertising, and advanced measurement techniques. Amazon strategically prioritized Prime Video over Freevee, announcing default ads for subscribers in the upcoming month.
- All eyes on Data Privacy
Ever since Google announced its plans to phase out all third-party cookies, brands have been extremely keen on exploring cookie-free strategies. Brands are concerned about user privacy and want to ensure they do not breach the trust of their consumers while marketers are preparing for a new way to conduct business-as-usual. They are very interested in exploring “alternative IDs” and leveraging first-party data to serve ads to consumers.
The depreciation of cookies has augmented the need for interest-based targeting now more than ever. Marketers want to go beyond the obvious and find new targeting opportunities. The advertising world is excited about the possibilities AI unfolds like locating audiences in new environments or unearthing new audience segments that they never knew existed.
- Navigating the Horizon of Television Innovation
As an enduring highlight at CES, televisions continue to captivate audiences with their evolving features and capabilities. The trend of larger, more powerful, and smarter TVs persists, promising an enriched viewing and auditory adventure. This constant evolution not only elevates the home entertainment experience but also solidifies the pivotal role of television technology in the realms of consumer electronics and advertising. Unveiling cutting-edge screen technologies remains a focal point at CES, evident in the remarkable display advancements showcased across various devices, from expansive TVs to experimental bendable phones. Renowned manufacturers showcased their latest television sets, with a notable emphasis on the integration of advanced AI chips.
These are the trending topics and points of discussion from CES 2024. However, these aren’t just fleeting topics of discussion or a mere trade show round-up. These topics are key indicators showing the world the direction in which industries are moving and how they are leveling up to meet consumer expectations.
Interested to learn more about what we do at Seedtag? Explore our success stories here or drop us a line and we’ll get in touch with you.
It’s 2024, the year of privacy is finally here. Google announced the deprecation of third-party cookies back in 2019 and the world has been abuzz ever since. The countdown has finally begun. January 4th marked the pivotal change as Google Chrome began the third-party cookie phase-out by initiating its restriction for 1% of users. Google also revealed that it plans to ramp up third-party cookie restrictions to 100% of users from Q3 2024. However, it was finally announced that the cookie deprecation would not take place as such.
With this, the digital advertising world marks a fundamental change in ad strategies and the go-to source of user targeting will soon cease to exist. Now publishers and advertisers must look for alternative approaches to reach users with tailored content that matches their preferences. As traditional, cookie-dependent practices become obsolete, the need to transition is inevitably clear. In a survey conducted in late 2022, 59% of respondents stated that they were either accelerating their readiness for a cookieless future or keeping it a high priority.
In anticipation of the cookieless future, Google introduces Privacy Sandbox. The Privacy Sandbox is Google’s initiative that aims to provide phase-out support for third-party cookies when new solutions are in place. It plays a crucial role in enabling advertisers and publishers to continue offering content online by ensuring a balance between user privacy and the sustainability of online services, reducing cross-site and cross-app tracking.
Digital marketing in the privacy-first world
Beyond Google’s Privacy Sandbox, advertisers are also exploring other alternatives to third-party cookies to make a seamless transition and create effective privacy-first ad strategies. One of the more obvious emphasis has fallen on first-party data. Data collected with the knowledge and consent of users, first-party data refers to the information that a brand collates from users when they interact with the brand’s website and marketing/advertising literature or make a purchase. This data gives advertisers insights into user preferences that help them segment audiences and deliver ads that align with their interests.
Zero-party data is always a great option as the data is directly and intentionally shared by the user to receive personalized communications from the brand. Both zero and first-party data are collected with the user’s consent and are authentic sources of information that brands can rely on as they are accurate and compliant with data privacy regulations.
Other options of programmatic advertising include demographic, geographic, or device-based targeting but these don’t offer the ability to create and share relevant content to users. Zero and First-party targeting practices are also limiting as advertisers are restricted to their existing audience base. Advertisers and publishers need a privacy-safe solution that combines relevance with scale.
Contextual targeting has emerged as a front-runner in the transition to the cookieless world as it bridges the gap between relevance and scale and offers a new-age, non-intrusive solution. Looking at data beyond a user’s browsing history or leveraging third-party cookie data, contextual targeting focuses on a user’s current interests based on the content they are consuming. Without tracking a user’s browsing patterns or using alternative IDs, contextual advertising powered by AI goes beyond stereotypes and enables precise targeting. Network Level Analysis (NLA) provides real-time insights and recognizes trends that power more effective strategies by reaching the right audiences where they are.
Contextual advertising is pushing the boundaries by transcending conventional, stereotypical, and invasive practices of categorizing users based on interests and past browsing patterns that are not always accurate. Instead, the focus lies on placing ads on web pages where the on-page content and context align with the ads. This ensures the ads match the content a user is currently consuming, maximizing relevance without violating their privacy.
Built for scale, contextual targeting empowers advertisers to create custom audience categories that align with their brand based on contextual cues. It presents an opportunity to elevate to a future-proof strategy that embraces diversity and inclusivity through a more in-depth understanding of audience preferences. Contextual targeting’s ability to understand nuances and semantically interpret content also enhances brand safety and brand suitability by eliminating the display of ads beside negative or harmful content and ensuring ad placement falls in line with the overall message and tonality of the brand.
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